Happy Hour: Save the Ice Until Last

Earlier this week I learned a great tip from one of San Francisco's best bartenders, Marco Dionysus of Clock Bar. We were chatting about the proper way to build a drink in a cocktail shaker.

His advice is something of a no-brainer, but definitely worth mentioning: when it comes to making any drink, from a mojito to a martini, always place the ice in the shaker last. Adding the ice before you incorporate the other ingredients can severely dilute a drink. Within the time it takes to walk to your liquor cabinet and grab the vodka, the ice is already melting in the cocktail shaker. It makes perfect sense, and I hate to say it, but I've been sipping diluted drinks for years!

I've always done this...guess it just always made sense to me. I mix up my drink components and then add my ice and mix that in. It definitely cuts down on the dilution problem. You do have to be a bit careful though, because you can splash pretty easily.